Thomas D. Moser

This is the show I mentioned in my earlier post. I didn’t realize the show had debuted already (like I said, busy!). We’re already at 90,000+ views!

It’s been hard work but it’s been a blast! We are taking over the show after the pilot and our episodes will be coming up very soon. In the meantime, please head on over to Heavy.com and give us some page views, and feel free to leave comments here or over there about what you think!

I’ve been working some really long days on a new CG animated series for Tivo, so I haven’t had a change to post. I’m really looking forward to updating with the first episode of my new show! I also have some interesting topics on animation I look forward to discussing.

Aladdin 3. Cinderella 3. The Lion King 2. Peter Pan 2. I know this is blasphemy to many, particularly purist animation artists and fans. But I’m here to defend these films for a couple of reasons.

First let me say that there is some validity to the idea that our time as artists is better spent on totally original stories, or at least newish adaptations of books, fairy tales, and songs that haven’t been animated before. I’m well aware of Walt’s old quote as well but even Pixar did Toy Story 2 and Steven Spielberg produced Fievel Goes West plus about eighteen Land Before Times. And yet there still seems to me a double-standard between animation and live action. And in live action there is no unspoken stigma at ALL over sequels. Audiences love them.

And that brings me to my other point. What we do, we do for audiences. Film is a uniquely commercial art form. It is driven by the market and always has been. That’s not to say that there should be no integrity whatever in our medium, but that integrity is always subject to financial concerns. If you produce a sequel and audiences gobble it up in droves, then who is to say that you were wrong for giving it to them?

Second, animated films keep animators working. And to their credit, Disney has really upped the game on the quality of these direct-to-DVD titles. Some of them look nearly as good as the features. I for one am a big fan of The Lion King 1 1/2. And aren’t working animators usually a good thing? These films are less expensive, so the studios are more likely to make them. And unlike the collapse of 2D feature animation because of bloated budgets, the studios can make these films with much less risk.

I think Aladdin 2 was a bad start, but I’m happy to see the studios starting to take these films more seriously, and I think we as animation fans should too.

I look forward to riding this one!

Visitors to the Walt Disney World theme park stood in line for hours Monday waiting to get on the Whirly Merge, a new thrill ride that promises all the excitement of the 1996 merger between the Walt Disney Company and Capital Cities/ABC, Disney officials said Wednesday.

“The [boardroom] shake-up was really scary,” Tyler James, 10, said. “I felt a little sick during the arbitrage part, but I still want to go again!”

This was posted in the forums and I think it’s worth linking to here. It does require a few tools but if you have the know-how, it might save you a few hundred bucks. More money for paper!

I hesitate to even tell you what to listen for because you’ll imagine that’s what you’re hearing. Oh well, that’s what makes it fun I suppose. The pig is running around and supposedly says, “Get the f-ck out.” But does he? I’ll let you be the judge.

Sorry to be nitpicky, but Disney’s first “black princess” is from Louisiana. Can she really be a princess if she’s from a country with no monarchy or official royal titles? Is this an honorary title? Does it really matter?

This was a controversial position when I was in animation school between the computer animation students and the traditional animation students. In that time, CG artists have gotten very sophisticated, working with more and more realistic human beings, objects, etc. But for me, it always falls apart in one significant area, movement. In school, there was a remarkable difference between traditionally trained animators and those who worked solely on the computer. And it wasn’t just in the final product. It was in the process and the approach.

When it came time to a walk cycle, the computer guys would strain at their monitors, trying to imagine in their heads how the feet move from one place to another, how the body moves up and down. The traditional guys would actually get up out of their chairs and walk around the room, sketch friends walking, and shooting video reference.

I think times have changed a little, with computers becoming more and more viable as actual training tools, and computer animators understanding the importance of analogue techniques, but my personal opinion as of now is that traditionally trained animators will out animate those trained solely on the computer. I think that traditional animators can more easily make the transition to the computer than vice versa.

And when the power goes out, we will always have our pencil and paper.

Do I sound like an 80-year-old man? Am I out of touch? Any thoughts?

Not animation, I know, but I also work in live action in both film and television. This is the pitch promo for the pilot for my new show about assistants in a salon. Enjoy.

Of course, “hate” is such a strong word. Which is why it’s so appropriate in this case.

I have two Macs (an iMac and a Mac mini) and a dilapidated Windows laptop that is on the verge of being replaced with a Macbook Pro. I use both platforms all the time, sometimes simultaneously. OS X is a great operating system. I’ve been using Vista for awhile now and like it as well. Both do just about the same things about as well as the other.

So how to explain the brainwashed cult following for a product that is marginally better and marginally more expensive than the competition? Is it the small marketshare? Could be, but they are equally cultish about the iPod, which dominates the mp3 player market. And Apple isn’t exactly some smallish corner shop; it’s a multi-billion dollar corporation.

I don’t think it’s loyalty. I don’t think it’s simple preference. I don’t even think it’s religious-like devotion. The closest parallel I can find is political partisanship. Partisanship causes us to become outraged at our opponent’s behavior and dismissive at our own side’s similar behavior. We look for tiny minor differences to explain away our hypocrisy, but ultimately we are judging the same action by two different standards. It causes us to see our side’s every move and action as glorious, innovative, and good, while the other side’s actions are evil, manipulative, and illogical. Like defending Apple’s monopoly and anti-competitive practices while attacking Microsoft, like accusing every other company in the world of ripping off Apple, even when they release a product before Apple does, and defending Apple whenever Apple copies or rips off someone else.

The difference between politics and Apple-partisanship is that there is no actual opponent reacting from the other side. In politics, there are Democrats and Republicans (if you’re American). In tech, there is only the Apple cult, and virtually no Windows equivalent. You could point to a few anti-Apple fanatics, but I suspect that these people are mostly just reacting to the Apple cult itself. As Mac cultists are fond of pointing out, there are no Windows fanatics.

Apple makes great products, especially their hardware. But so do a lot of companies. In my opinion, the weirdly emotional commitment that some Mac users have to this company is ultimately a detriment, to both the user base and the company itself. Luckily, Apple has, for the most part, not let their supremely uncritical base allow them to become complacent. But I know more than a few people who would consider Macs but are turned off by the cult. And I can’t blame them for that.